


How to function in a stupid world

by astropixie



Series: Friends don't diagnose friends [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, Bruce Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Feels, Clint Needs a Hug, Depression, Friends should not write treatment plans for friends, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Loneliness, Natasha Feels, POV Sam Wilson, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Steve Feels, Suicidal Thoughts, Therapy, Thor Is Not Stupid, Tony Feels, author just wants more therapy fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-17 13:47:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2311781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astropixie/pseuds/astropixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky needs professional help to heal but won't go outside Avengers Tower. He also nearly strangled the nice therapist lady Tony hired to make house calls. Steve uses puppy eyes on Sam to get him to help Bucky. Sam rightfully refuses; they're friends and colleagues, he can't be a therapist to a friend and colleague--and besides, he's not a professional. But too late, the idea has caught on, and *everyone* wants help from Sam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to function in a stupid world

I mean, I've had psych 101. And I guess I've read a lot about recovering from trauma. I've talked to a lot of soldiers about their experiences and I've managed to work through (most of) my mess with help from real professionals.

Doesn't make me qualified to help any of these guys with their issues. In a group setting, maybe, I'm used to that, but everyone has made it clear that if they're going to accept help it's going to be in private.

I talk shop sometimes with Captain Barthelemy, the onsite PhD psychologist from my sordid past. She was there in the desert because the army paid off her student loan debt if she agreed to serve. She said she liked the soldiers anyway; at least they wanted to get better. There's some joke about a light bulb and a social worker in there somewhere. She listened to my problems, but when I asked her what to do about them she would just say, "I can't help you; friends don't write treatment plans for friends." Gain a friend, lose a therapist.

Unfortunately for me, everyone already thought my limited experience and ability to not be decapitated by Bucky's arm made me a great choice of therapist, not only for him but for the whole damn team. Hard to say no to such damaged people who don't have anyone else. Still, I called up Barthelemy, blurry and sandy on Skype.

"What the hell are you thinking, you live and work with those people," she said in her angry Ricky Ricardo-like Cuban accent, exactly like I thought she would.

I explained that Bucky was still too fragile to see new people, let alone trust them, and the rest of the team had never expressed an interest in seeing professionals until they latched on to me.

She considered. "So it's an emergency situation."

"Yeah, I guess it is."

"Your goal should be to get them all ready to see a trained professional. You need to make your boundaries clear that this is temporary."

\--

As Tony Stark sobbed on to my light grey t-shirt, I knew I had failed to establish the appropriate boundaries.

"Dude, dude, calm down," I said, kicking myself mentally--you're supposed to let people cry, not hush them up--or at least you are in the brand of therapy I'm familiar with, dear God I'm clueless--"It's okay to cry, Tony, just let it out." I looked around for tissues. We were set up in the living room on my floor, which I had barely decorated and had a cold Tony's tower decor look to it: clean, modern, but all sharp lines and square couches with the flattest of cushions. And there were no tissues.

I peeled off my shirt--it stuck to my pecs with the thick snotty tears--and handed it to him as he stood up. Then, seemingly shocked to find himself on my floor crying, he sat down with a thud on one of the hard couches, dabbing softly at his face.

"You're an Old Spice man?" he asked.

"Uh, yeah. Original scent."

"I like Playmaker. Pepper likes it too."

We sat there pretending like he hadn't just told me he would be better off dead because everyone around him gets hurt for a few long minutes. My heart pounded; what the hell was I supposed to say? What would Barthelemy say?

I know, she'd screen him with one of her favorite tests. Something with some pictures that people with different problems would interpret in preset ways--oh, like that would work on a mind that didn't think like any other. Would she just ask? How were you supposed to ask? I knew this, I knew this..

"Tony, have you thought about how you would...you know." That's it Wilson, that's how you find out.

"Kill myself?"

I waited. He drummed his fingers on the couch, thinking. I could just see him thinking up ways to do it on the spot. Goddamn, that's why you use a screening test instead of asking with leading questions, because sometimes patients who previously might not have killed themselves will start thinking about ways to do it if you ask...

"I mean, with my line of work, it wouldn't--it could just be an accident and I wouldn't have to hurt anyone if I did it."

Something inside me crumpled. His quick eyes could see that, too. He hopped up. "I should be done now. Sorry. I didn't mean to say all that."

"Tony, sit your ass back down."

To my surprise, he did.

"You know a place I volunteered once? The suicide ward." He flinched. Good, I was pissed off. "All the folks who try to kill themselves but fail end up there. It's the worst place to work in the whole damn hospital--you got all these folks who are there because they don't wanna be _here_ anymore but whatever method they saw on TV and in the movies didn't work--you don't get doctors and dentists in there, they know what they're doing and they do it right. But these folks, they screwed up, and everyone knows it, and everyone is even more mad at them than they were before, and those people lying in beds recovering from some overdose or bad cut on the arm are hurting even worse than before. The doc can patch them up but they always come back. Because now they're out in the world with some disability from screwing themselves up and life is even harder. That's where you'll end up if you get yourself hurt, Tony, and I'll know it."

Tony sat across from me uncharacteristically silent, eyes leaking with no sound.

"I think you know you don't want to hurt anyone and that that's what you'd be doing if you tried anything. Can I trust you to not try anything?"

He shrugged.

"I'm not super convinced."

Tony looked everywhere but at me. "I didn't mean it, I just like attention. You know me, I don't get enough of it. It was a stupid thing to say. I just wanted to see what you'd do, you know. How you'd react."

Again I felt like I had to remember some conversation or article about handling suicidal people--part of that might be true, part of it might not be--especially with what I knew about Tony's whack upbringing. The guy was crawling with developmental issues that probably needed to be delved into. I tried just asking questions.

"Did I react like you thought I would?"

"Worse. Worse than I thought."

"What, did you think I'd be hopping around singing 'ding dong the witch is dead'?"

Great question, Wilson.

"Maybe," Tony whispered. Then, "Hey, Steve would get that reference..."

I shook my head. "Man, you need to work through that. We all like you. You're a good man. We all know that, you've shown us that. Okay?"

Another shrug.

"You want to, um. Go out for some drinks?"

He perked up, the direction of the conversation steering in a more comfortable direction. "We can go to that new brewpub, the one with the peanut butter stout. Or the scotch bar."

"Peanut butter," I said firmly, and after a quick detour to find a clean shirt, we headed out.

\--

"You're an idiot," Barthelemy told me the next day.

"The guy is depressed, I thought a few drinks would--"

"You should have called a suicide hotline, or 911, or a real therapist!" she interrupted. "Not get a suicidal person into a state of lowered inhibition!"

"Hey now," I said. "You said the goal was to get him ready for a real therapist, well, I did that. I got him to call his old therapist while he was drunk, and they're meeting this afternoon."

She sat back in her office chair. "Did you now. That's perfect, that's exactly the goal. Think you can do something like that for the others?"

I groaned; the victory of Tony seeing someone who wasn't me was good...but I had six more to go.

"You let me know, I got a guy who just lost his arm, I gotta go." She logged out with that bubbly Skype sound, and left me reeling alone. Then Steve came in. 

**Author's Note:**

> My first venture into fic for a long time. I literally closed my eyes and hid behind one hand while I posted with the other. I hope others also enjoy therapy fics; I just wanted one that features everyone. 
> 
> Also, yeah, you're really, really not supposed to play therapist for friends. I was going to have the OC Barthelemy be their snarky therapist but landed on wanting the drama of a teammate filling that role instead. And Sam does a lot of stuff wrong. It turned out okay this time...


End file.
